Charles Snapp left no doubt about it:

The duck descending gently toward the water 15 yards in front of us was all mine.

"Paul, shoot that duck!" his hushed voice urgently instructed.

Coiled thigh-deep in water between two tupelo trees, I shifted my weight forward to shoulder my shotgun. Instinctively, the butt of the stock found the pit of my arm while my eyes tracked the backpedaling gadwall silhouette.

As my finger began to squeeze the trigger, the duck vanished. Not behind a tree -- but into the blackness of the Arkansas dawn.

I heard its belly gently splash, and the ripples of the bird's touchdown lapped toward my waders. If the duck would have landed any closer, I'm sure I'd have heard it breathing.

But I still couldn't see it. The green timber shadows had swallowed my duck. I clicked the safety back on.

No matter. Another dozen ducks whipped dizzyingly overhead, turning on cue for another pass as Snapp summoned them with enticing quacks.

"Watch these out front," cautioned Zack Rednour, an avid waterfowler from Southern Illinois.

After the ducks whirled past, Rednour joined Snapp in duck talk. While my partners called, I swung my leg in the water to create waves to move the dozen magnum mallard decoys we'd set in a small opening in the flooded woods.

They stopped calling. I froze. And four fat gadwalls filtered through the trees, tantalizingly close. I fired first. I missed badly, but Snapp and Rednour tumbled birds. I caught a break when, amidst the confusion of wings and echoing gunfire, a fleeing duck twisted past as it reached for the treetops. This time, I had a clear sight line. A moment later, my first Arkansas duck -- a handsomely plumed drake gadwall -- rested belly up next to a wide-trunked tupelo.

Zack Rednour, right, of Flambeau Outdoors, watches ducks pass over the timber.

Although I longed to retrieve my feathered prize, I stood statuesque as more wings whistled above. Behind me, Snapp's Santa-like beard bounced as he quacked gently at the latest squadron of ducks. To my right, I saw Rednour's face tense as the birds dropped for a closer look at our stools.

Another gadwall floated gently toward the surface, with three more lowering their flaps right on its tail feathers. It would have been so simple to shoot them. But Snapp was stone still. Rednour crouched behind a tree. I twitched nervously. As the gadwalls touched down, another half-dozen bigger ducks hovered, their orange feet flailing for water.

"Now!" Snapp said. "It's hammertime!"

Startled mallards frantically fought for altitude. Shotguns belched. Greenheads crashed.

Gadwalls folded.

Deep in prime beaver habitat of Northeast Arkansas, I experienced the frenzied action of a storied style of duck hunting I'd read about for years, but never before had opportunity to try.

Migrating With the Birds
I felt like I was in another world. A day earlier, I migrated south from a frozen Wisconsin landscape largely void of waterfowl. Duck season was over up north.